When travelling overseas, activating data roaming on your contract or prepaid account might seem like the easiest thing to do. But, do you know how much you’re actually going to be paying for your internet usage on your smartphone or tablet while out of the country?

Vodacom

Because Vodacom is a subsidiary of Vodafone, it has some of the best global coverage available.

Roaming coverage is available in almost every country on the planet. To find out how much you’ll pay, dependent on the country you go to and the plan you’re on, click here.

Below is a broad list covering what your average data cost will be when roaming:

Zone

Cost per MB used (Inclusive of VAT)

Vodafone World – Neighbouring countries

R51.10

Vodafone World – Sub-Saharan Africa

R102.40

Vodafone World – Rest of the world

R128.00

Super-Saver networks

R17.50

Africa Roaming family

R5.00

Vodacom Travel Saver

R2.00

Super-Saver Data Rates – You automatically qualify for a reduced rate at R17.50/MB when you roam on selected Vodafone partner networks.Africa Roaming Data Rates – You automatically qualify for a reduced rate at R5.00/MB when you roam on selected Africa Vodacom partner networks.

The Vodacom Africa Family includes these networks:

Vodacom Lesotho

Vodacom Mozambique

Vodacom Tanzania

Vodacom DRC

Vodafone Ghana

Kenya Safaricom

Travel Saver Data Rates – You can enjoy using data at a reduced rate of R2.00/MB when you activate the service and roam.

MTN

Data roaming costs on MTN are not any cheaper with the network charging R250 per MB on Airtel and Glo Mobile (Globacom) in Nigeria.

Egypt is even more expensive with MTN charging R400 per MB to roam on Orange, Vodafone, and Etisalat Misr.

To find out roaming costs for the country you’re travelling to while on MTN, click here.

Cell C

Cell C continues the trend of high data roaming costs.

The provider charges R223.90 per MB to roam on MTN in Nigeria and R461.70 per MB to roam on Vodafone in Egypt.

To find out the cost of data per MB while roaming on Cell C, click here.

Telkom Mobile

Telkom mobile, formerly known as 8ta, doesn’t offer the same amount of coverage across the continent as the other mobile networks.

To roam in the African countries, where Telkom does have partnerships, the data cost appears to be R120.27 per MB. This in each African country on the list that we’ve checked.

This makes them the most consistently lower cost roaming option.

To find a full list of countries that they do allow roaming in, click here.